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Monday, February 1, 2016

The lottery crazy has come and gone

Riley Smith

Staff Writer

Many have had the dream about what they would do if they won the lottery. When the Powerball reached an all-time high of $1.6 billion, everyone seemed to be crazed about the thought of winning the jackpot. Lottery machine lines wrapped around the New Hope Wawa, said an employee behind the counter before the drawing occurred.

The six balls were drawn on Jan. 13. Players select five numbers from a set of 69 numbers and one number from a set of 26 red Powerball numbers If your numbers match the six drawn, you win the jackpot! This may sound simple, but the odds of winning were calculated to be 1 in 292,201,338.

Some people are complete nonbelievers in the lottery, but many proved to enjoy the rush of having the very slim chance of instantaneously becoming rich.

The final Powerball drawing resulted in three different winners, so they have to split the $1.6 billion three ways. Therefore they would get about $533 million each, but after 39% tax cut that is immediately taken from the winnings, they are only left with the small sum of $327.8 million.

If a winner did win the full $1.6 billion jackpot and no taxes were taken out, then he could’ve done some pretty amazing things. The lucky winner could’ve bought 600 private islands, 7500 lamborghinis, and the Playboy Mansion (which has recently gone on sale), seven and a half times.

If this person wished for simpler things he could’ve bought 156,250,000 Chipotle steak burritos...with guac! Or he could’ve of just bought every single Chipotle store in the entire world.

Although the biggest jackpot ever has come and gone, you can always buy a Powerball ticket for the chance to win at least $40 million.